Soft and Tender Steel
by Aliniel
Summary: Although it has been a long time since Eve joined the crew, Raven can't get over his own past and refuses to get along with her. One day, the Nasod Queen proposes him a deal that Raven can't reject. They embark on a new quest together that could be the end of their hate.


_**Here comes another new fic... yeah...**_

_**This time is a collaboration work with Edelgarde. If you hadn't go check his works, they are pretty interesting. (Although very lewd, you've been warned)**_

_**We will be posting this fic here in my account and on his account on ao3. Also, bear in mind that while this is currently rated as SFW, that may change in the future due to explicit sex and/or violence (We hadn't decided on it yet)**_

_**Now, enjoy!**_

* * *

"Let's begin."

Raven's body immediately tensed up. The cold feeling against his shoulder felt like a creeping bug about to bite him. It was his first day going through this treatment, and he could already guess this was going to be a long and painful experience.

After losing half his body and getting it replaced by Nasod Tech, Raven couldn't bring himself to deal with it. And now he finally receives a chance to remove all of it and go back to his old self. But, it came at a price.

Altera was a hellish place. After freeing himself from the Nasod King's mind control, Raven found himself leading a bandit group only to be smacked in the face by a group of incredibly strong brats. Of course, had he been on top condition, those kids wouldn't even had a chance to get him, but on his former state he could only do that much. But it turned out to be a good thing, as that beating was all it took for Raven to finally get back on the right way. And so, he joined Elsword, Aisha and Rena on their quest for justice as a way to atone for everything that happen because of him through his life.

And Altera was the perfect way to start. Not only was Raven fighting evildoers, he was finally getting some revenge on the Nasods that used him to their own plans. It felt like a liberating experience, until they found her.

An ancient Nasod, sleeping within the deepest chambers of the floating island. Her name was Eve and the first thing she did when they woke her up was to hit Elsword. She was mad after seeing what they have done to her fellow Nasods. However, after managing to get some words through her, she finally calmed down and somehow Elsword managed to get her on their own side. Everyone quickly accepted her in the group.

Except for Raven.

He hated the Nasods. But it was a pointless hate. Raven wouldn't hate his toaster for burning a loaf of bread, or an engine for failing to start. He would either fix them or throw them away and get a replacement. But Eve was different from any other Nasod. She wasn't a simple machine created to perform simple tasks. And it became more apparent as time passed. Eve was a sentient being, she was intelligent, capable of feeling and showing emotion. And yet, not even a single time, did she show any kind of remorse about what happened to Raven.

"I'm about to remove the first layer, it will hurt you,"

"How much?"

"In a 1 to 10 scale, it should be a 7."

She said she wasn't aware of what happened to Raven since she was hibernating. It was a convenient excuse, to say that she was sleeping while he was being forced to murder innocents. But that wasn't what made Raven hate her. The reason was her behaviour.

Not only did she felt nothing about his past, Raven was sure that if given the chance, Eve would do just what King Nasod did without a second thought. After all that's how machines think. They only care about _efficiency _and _usefulness_.

"We are almost finished,"

Raven looked to his side. Eve was sitting next to him, with a flashlight tied around her head, concentrating on the half dismantled Nasod arm in front of her. Raven's arm was lying lifelessly on a small tray. The superior plating had been removing, and the small pieces below it had been taken out. Eve had spread them in a neatly ordered position, similar to what you would see in a blueprint. Tiny gears, shiny cables and other objects Raven couldn't identify, everything rested on the tray while Eve examined it. She made a gesture for one of her drones. A white small metallic ball moved closer and hovered over his arm. From below its eyes a bluish light was projected. It illuminated his dismantled arm before flickering and turning off.

"Record this as well," Eve asked, moving the tray with the pieces in front of the drone for it to project its light once more "Well done, Remy. You may rest with Moby now."

The white drone beeped, it slowly flied away to sit next to a black drone on another table. Eve started to put every piece back now. In the meantime, Raven remained silent, avoiding eye contact as much as he could.

"I finished."

Without a word, Raven stood up and checked the Nasod arm. He feel a painful sensation, similar to a numb limb waking up, but it quickly faded away. He walked to the other corner of the room, next to his bed, and picked up a bunch of bandages from the floor. Carefully, he started covering the Nasod arm with them, making sure they were tight enough to keep it restrained.

"I successfully evaluated the state of your prosthetic enhancement as well as designed the replacement you want," Eve started to say, picking up her tools and turning off the flashlight before taking it off her head.

The room they were in sook for a moment. A strong wind noise was heard outside as the lights flickered. Soon, the amplified voice of a ponggo was heard through the pipes.

"Sorry about that, is really windy today. Anyways, we are about to land on our village!"

There was a reason for Raven to be travelling with Eve, of all people, in a flying machine to Altera, of all places. Not long ago, after the team finally managed to clear the demon corruption from Feita and they moved into the capital to help with evacuation, Eve proposed something to him. He would normally refuse to do anything that she wanted, but this time it was different. What she said was that she could take his Nasod parts and replace them with human counterparts.

Having hated what the Nasod did to him ever since, this was too good of a chance to let it go. But there was a catch: The technologies and machines that Eve needed in order to do it were in Altera, and even if the El Search Party already cleared out most of the treats in the floating island, it was still far from safe.

Of course, Eve wasn't doing this out of altruism. Apart from what Raven needed, there was something she wanted in the island as well. Something that she could not retrieve on her own.

Although she would never admit it, Eve was by far the weakest member of the team. Having to rely on her two drones for almost every attack added to her lack of experience in combat and you get the walking mess she is in combat. At least she can compensate for it with her superior intelligence and her outstanding agility. With the help of her drones, she's even able to fly. For a short time at least.

But in terms of raw power, she was lacking. And unlike humans, just training wasn't going to improve her skills. Eve mentioned something called _codes_. They are some kind of enhancement that allows Eve to fight in a better way. Although Raven had no idea how that works but apparently just having them can increase her power greatly.

As the flying machine started its descend the stateroom they were in shook making the small tools and pieces that remained on the table dangerously slide to the sides. Eve quickly secured her belongings back into their bags. Raven threw a white jacket over his shoulders and exited the small room. They moved into the flying machine's deck. The ponggos salvaged what they could from the Nasod mining ship and the Black Crow's ship and merged it all together in this mechanical chimera. The resulting ship was a combination of fine Nasod technology and architecture and savage bandit decoration. The halls connecting the different parts of the ship were covered in sleek blue steel walls and paved with treated wood planks while at the same time they had big holes from where you could see rusty gears moving. Even the layout was a mess, as they needed to cross both the engine rooms and the kitchen to move from the stateroom to the deck.

The moment they stepped out they saw that the Sky Crawler, temporary name; was currently flying through a thick dark cloud. As the machine dived closer to the island, it finally cleared and they were greeted by the magnificent view of the flying island. Although Altera is not as big as regular islands, the tall spiral like mountain in the center and the huge Nasod installations on the bottom make it look even larger than what it really is. The ponggo tribe made some great advances since the last time they saw them. They started to come out of their underground hideout and building a small village on the island plains. They also removed most of the Nasod remains that littered the surface of the island to recycle their metals. In the middle of the new village they build a wide land pad for the Sky Crawler. A group of ponggo was already waiting next to it, eager to board the machine and travel to the land below. Like most of the ponggos, they were just excited about discovering the world beyond the island.

"Can you bring our luggage?," Eve asked Raven as she lined to get off. Raven pursed his lips in a smirk, as if the Nasod would even carry the heavy stuff by herself.

Finally on land, or at least floating land; they headed for the leader's hut. Although they were on the island for their own reasons, not visiting Adel would be rude, considering how rarely they get any visit at all. He moved his office from the underground to the plains, like many others. Without the imminent menace of the Nasods and the bandits, this place was way more livable. Although it was far from secure, as rogue Nasods and bandits still lurked around the place.

"Greetings, friends. What brings you here?" Adel happily said. His hoarse voice interrupted by a cough as he put his pipe away and received a look of concern from Amos, the village's alchemist. Raven waved at the two of them, and just waited for the _Boss_ to speak.

"We need to retrieve some machinery and technology from the factories."

Adel's eyes widened, he looked at the alchemist briefly exchanging a short worried look.

"Dear miss, I know you two are well versed fighters, but I still have to warn you about going there. Even after what Elsword and his party did there, many Nasods still lurk around the place."

"I'm aware of it."

Eve didn't said anything more and just made her way out of the hut. Raven stood there, he would have been surprised by her rude behaviour before, but now he was just used to it.

"Thanks for your concern Adel, we'll try to stay out of trouble," The former mercenary said, following Eve outside.

Eve usually looks rude or weird when doing things like that. Although she can't really help it, as she's used to interact with Nasods and machines more than humanoid creatures. She doesn't mean bad either, it's just the way she is.

They didn't spend much time on the village and head out right away. The Ponggo offered to give them a small cabin and some workspace but they had to decline. As Eve said going back and forth from the fabric would consume and absurd amount of time since completing the task in a single day was obviously going to be impossible. Although she also said she could secure some safe rooms on the fabric itself, Raven already packed his tent and bedroll just in case.

Altera's surface was pretty different from before. Without the scrapped Nasods lying around and filtering their oils and toxic reagents into the land, vegetation started to grow once again on this barren lands, dotting the saddening brown tone of the island with lively greens.

Slowly but surely, vines and moss started claiming the few remaining abandoned Nasod structures, covering them on colorful branches of yellow and white flowers. Raven and Eve, however, weren't here for the views.

"Where are we exactly going?" Raven questioned a few minutes after abandoning the village. He had being silently following Eve the whole time.

"Factory Nº 008, Underground 11, Section B. That's our first stop," She nonchalantly answered. Raven rolled his eyes at the answer.

"What I meant was how are we getting there."

"If we follow this path for 2 more kilometers we'll find an access to maintenance tunnel B-079. If we enter said tunnel we'll just have to keep going until we reach Factory Nº 008. I'll give you further indications once we are there if you need them."

As detailed as the directions were, Raven couldn't focus on them. He just heard a noise between the bushes surrounding the path and raised his arm to make Eve stop. Without exchanging any words, they got closer and crouched. Raven put his hand on the hilt of his sword while Eve called in her drones, who flew in circles above her head, waiting to strike anything that would jump on them.

"Seems like they seem us," A voice was heard from beneath the bushes. It sounded peculiarly high, with a jokingly tone even. Almost as if they wanted to be noticed, but at the same time something was muffling it, making it sound as if the person was wearing a mask.

"They did, should we introduce ourselves?" A second voice replied. This time was a girl, with almost the same joking tone.

All of the sudden two figures emerged from within the bushes. Eve was ready to command her drones to attack but Raven just stopped her at the same time that he stood up and ran to the taller guy and, to the Nasod surprise and confusion, they exchanged a headbutt.

"Raven! You motherfucker. What are you doing here?" The man said. His voice was covered by the thick filter of a gas mask that hid most of his face. He looked like a crow bandit, except that his leather clothes were missing the black crows that the gang used as symbols.

"I could ask you two the same question," Raven answered, patting the man on the back with enough strength to make him bend forward with a laugh.

Eve stared at the duo without knowing what to say about it, and then her eyes wandered to the girl next to them. She was shorter than Eve and had her face hidden behind a fox mask. She was wearing a blue uniform that was suspiciously similar to the clothes that the gardening nasod units used to wear. It even had a serial number on one of the shoulders. The girl waved her hand at Eve in an attempt to greet her, which was ignored when Eve turned her attention back to Raven.

"Do you know them?" Eve questioned. Both Remy and Moby flew behind her, staring at Raven with a heavily judging gaze as if they were ready to charge in if the answer was not convincing enough.

"Ah… Yeah," Raven said, he almost forgot about her "They're Vick and Vance, two friends from my times with the gang."

"Are they bandits then?" In response to her question, Moby and Remy chirped in a menacing tone, already moving in front of her, waiting for the attack order.

"Ah, not anymore miss," Vance answered this time. He raised his hands trying to calm down the drones as if they were a couple of angry dogs "When Raven left, most of us decided to give up on that life."

"Most of us?" Raven asked "I thought I told all of you to stop messing around with people,"

"Yeah, you did" This time it was Vick the one talking "But after failing to get their life on the right way, some people just went back to the old days of pillage."

"It's a bit worse than before though... " Vance added "You remember Sleshu right? He's in charge of the _New Black Crow bandits_," he elaborated, making a silly comma gesture on the last part.

"Sleshu? Are you serious?" Raven couldn't believe it. He remembers Sleshu as the eternal second in charge that would always eat his orders without a question. Way more skilled than any other bandit but at the same time he never had what it took to be the one in charge.

"I'm afraid I'll have to interrupt this emotive meeting, but we'll not waste more time here, Raven," Eve stated. She crossed her arms and walked forward, not giving them any chance to reply.

"Well, I guess we'll have to talk later. You know where to find us, Raven. Come by when your… girl is not so anxious," Vick said.

"Don't even think about it, she's not my girl," Raven replied with an annoyed face to what Eve added "I'm not anyone's girl," with an even more annoyed face.

Leaving the bandit pair behind, they kept walking down the path. Despite how much it has changed, the desolated feeling still persisted in the island. Perhaps a secondary effect to its wide emptiness, the backdrop of abandoned and ruined factories or just the occasional scrapped Nasod lying on the side of the road. Add to it the unconventional way that these paths have formed, going in and out of _surface access_ points for Nasods that were just tiny Nasod shaped holes on the ground connecting with some of the facilities below; and you have an eerie and unsettling island to explore.

The concave shape that the hills and ruins gave the pathway caused any little sound to echo through the entire area. A small piece of still from a big machine that had broken down remained attached to it by a thick cable, being swayed by the wind and hitting the rest of the structure sending a constant and bothering sound through the plains. It was about to drive Raven mad, as well as the perpetual silence that they had been keeping ever since they left Vick and Vance behind.

Eventually, all of his attention was focused on finding the source of the noise. His eyes scanned every ruinous structure lying around the road for any moving part. Not only the sound was a bother, the indifference towards it that Eve displayed was adding to it. Every time he had been with her for anything, he always felt like getting the shorter end of the stick. Be it about getting injured during a mission or simply being bothered by a repetitive noise.

And he finally saw it. One large crane that was rusting away at the side of the road had a metal box still attached to its hook. With the wind making it bump into the crane itself, he decided to put an end to it. Without a word, he separated from Eve, ignoring both her questions and the way she rolled her eyes at his _humanly nonsensical problem_ as she called it.

He starting climbing the scaffold side of the crane. It was fairly high, and once he reached the top he still had to walk through the arm to reach the cable. He could see Eve below, looking at him with her arms crossed and a disapproving look in her eyes. He jumped from the arm and landed on top of the container, with a quick swing of the sword, he cut the cable and it fell down. He made sure to grab the cable and watched it going down to produce a loud noise for the last time. With a look of satisfaction on his face, Raven climbed the cable on top of the arm back again, only to hear a loud metallic noise again. When he looked down with irritance written on his face, he saw the metal container being hit from the inside.

A big driller attached to a steel pylon punched a hole through the container. It kept breaking it apart until the Nasod on the inside made its way out. It was a large machine unit that moved on top of threads and was carrying a huge dozer-like claw and a spinning drill. The heavy machinery was mounted on a bulky body that barely resembled a really muscled man. Once it finally managed to get out, the Nasod mining unit set its virtual eyes on Eve and then on Raven.

"Mining unit: X0 is online. Mining operations will commence immediately." The machine said. It had a nice and clear voice, although it rang with a metallic echo that gave it an even more robotic tone.

It steered itself on top of the treads, slamming the spinning drill against the crane. The metallic bars were torn into pieces and the whole structure came down like a cut down tree. Raven managed to jump away avoiding any injury. A large dust cloud was blown over the battlefield as the crane turned into a giant mess of scrap metal. He detected the enemy moving away from him. The mining unit lifted its oversized claw in the air and attempted to crush Eve under it. But as the claw hit the ground, the Nasod only found dirt and rocks on its nails as Eve managed to get away in time. She extended her arm and her loyal drones flew around it, tracing the outline of a blue portal that quickly materialized a small arachnid type scout unit. It threw itself with its sharp legs towards the machine. Although they couldn't pierce the thick plate on the mining unit, the force was enough to make the enemy flinch and it would have been knocked down if it weren't for its large threads.

"Nano, ready for battle!" The scout unit chirped, although only Eve could understand it.

Raven took the chance to rush in. The mining unit just turned around to look at him moments before he leaped in the air. With a quick swing of his sword, blue energy shined around him as he was propelled like a dart towards the enemy. His sword managed to pierce the armor, but it went right through the Nasod without causing it any worry. The miner unit closed its mechanical arms in an attempt to catch Raven in a bear hug. He pulled the sword out and rolled out of the way. Quickly enough to avoid being caught, but not to dodge the follow up jab that the Nasod launched with its claw. Raven was knocked down and now the mining unit tried to run over him.

"Mining operations are in process. The presence of human beings in the area is not advisable," The mining machine announced with its prerecorded voice.

Moby and Remy acted quickly. They rammed themselves against the tip of the miner threads, derailing it from running over Raven and forcing a collision with the remains of the crane. An iron bean lodged itself between the two threads, avoiding the mining unit to move away. Nano arrived shortly after the two drones. It leaped into the mining unit frame and pointed its optical lense at the shoulder joints of the miner. The El stored inside it turned into electricity as an electron ball was shot from the optical lense, detonating and severing the cables on the machine. It's huge claw slowly started to descend as the hydraulic system lost fluids and it was finally rendered useless.

"Damage to this unit will be reported and punished by the Nasod authorities," the mining unit stated, as it hit the reverse and managed to get away from the beans. It spun around and turned on the driller "Explosives ready to deploy. Please evacuate."

As it said that, the miner leaned forward and a cannon like tube emerged from its back. It shoot a handful of TNT cartridges before pulling back and hiding into the miner frame again. Raven made a run for it. He spotted some scrap that could serve as a shield and ran straight towards it. The fuse of the bombs was finally consumed and they exploded, filling the area with debri and a deafening noise.

"If you are injured, head over the closest infirmary station to have a medical specialized unit to take care of you," the mining unit said as it scanned the area for survivors.

Raven couldn't decide whether those were some kind of prerecorded messages to play during mining operations or if the machine was actually taunting him. The mercenary peeked out of his cover. He had forgotten about Eve. Looking around he found no trace of her. Maybe she ran away. It would be easier to fight without her anyways. Raven darted from his hide out towards the Nasod. The mining unit swung the spinning drill against him, but Raven managed to slid below it. He swung his sword at the machine and, thought it hit, the blade got stuck on one of the miner joints. The Nasod pulled away and spun around, swinging the drill in a wide arc. Raven rolled out of the way. Without his sword there was few chances to get through that machine's armor.

Of course he could use the Nasod arm, but he wasn't up for that. Raven was looking around, searching for another option, when he finally saw something. It was unexpected, but Eve appeared again. Not sure how she survived the explosion, Eve came flying from behind the mining unit. She aimed her palm at the drill and an electron ball was shaped and swung at it. It connected on the shoulder and exploded, breaking the transmission axis and stopping the drill. She hurled another ball with the other hand into the enemy's head. Although it did not explode, it created a ton of sparks and nasty sounds as the main circuits of the Nasod got fried by the electricity.

"Mining op-op-operations are interrup-p-p-p…" The voice shrieked in a distorted version of the calmed male voice it had before until it completely shut down.

Raven sighed. He patted the dust out of his white coat and gathered back with Eve. The Nasod looked at him with a stern gaze.

"That was extremely stupid. I told you to leave that thing alone. And on top of that, you didn't protect me during the fight. If you had forgotten, you're just here to escort me. If I don't make it safely to the factory you can say goodbye to your replacement!"

Surely she must have been angry, but it was hard to tell due to her never changing poker face. Raven decided to not say anything on it and just resumed walking behind her. They still had a long way up ahead.


End file.
